File:Sea Ice forming in Kuskokwim Bay (MODIS 2021-11-12).jpg

English: Fresh ice off the coast of southwestern Alaska shimmered in the sunlight of an autumn day in early November 2021. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image on November 11.

The icy fingers stretch across Kuskokwim Bay, a large embayment of the Bering Sea. It receives freshwater from several rivers, especially the large Kuskokwim River a glacially turbid river that originates in the Kuskokwim Mountains and traves approximately 900 miles through remote territory to reach the Bay. The drainage basin that flows into the river is the second-largest in the state of Alaska. The river typically ices up in mid-November, when sea ice also begins to form in the Bering Sea. This year, frigid temperatures near the ground arrived early and the annual expansion of sea ice is well underway. The rapid river ice-up stranded a barge that was carrying building materials downriver to Eek, a town of about 400 people in a remote area not far from the Kuskokwim River. In late October, as the barge turned towards the Eek River, a rapid drop in temperature brought a rapid freeze up of the river, obstructing the barge’s movement. It is planned to leave the barge in place overwinter and return to recover it in spring.

The National Weather Service reports that the sea ice minimum for the entire Arctic was called on September 16, with the overall sea ice extent in Alaska farther south than most of the last 10 years. The transition from ice shrinking to expansion is well underway, but the report states that new growth has been confined to the ice edge and is limited by sea surface temperatures. The sea surface temperatures in the northern Bering Sea were cooler than recent years, spurring a less-delayed start of freeze-up in this region.

To view the change in sea ice between October 29 and November 10, the NASA Worldview App provides a roll-over comparison. To view this, click here.

The NASA Worldview app provides a satellite's perspective of the planet as it looks today and as it has in the past through daily satellite images. Worldview is part of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System. EOSDIS makes the agency's large repository of data accessible and freely available to the public.